By R.M. CAMPBELL, P-I MUSIC CRITIC

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The music of Olivier Messiaen covers vast terrain, at once familiar and not familiar. Spanning almost the whole of the 20th century, he made music like no one else in France, his native country, or the world. He was widely influential but not followed, his individuality and mastery of form acknowledged and admired. He also was a devoted son of the Catholic Church, as faithful as J.S. Bach was to the Lutheran Church. His organ music, stretching over a 40-year period, was particularly associated with the church and its liturgy.

So it comes as no surprise that St. James Cathedral, the Catholic cathedral on First Hill, should pay particular attention to his music. With such skilled advocates as cathedral organist Joseph Adam and associate organist Clint Kraus, it is the place in the city to hear his huge outpouring of works, with their spiritual underpinnings.

Six years ago, St. James presented the extraordinary talent of Paul Jacobs, then a 25-year-old student at Yale University, in his national tour of a Messiaen marathon. In Seattle the musician did the complete works on the same day, essentially one long afternoon and one long evening. The performance was mind-expanding.

This time, St. James, in an ecumenical spirit, decided to join forces with St. Mark's Cathedral, the Episcopal cathedral on Capitol Hill, for a joint series of six concerts over 10 weeks to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth.

The first concert was Friday night at St. James. It revealed the full sonic glory of Messiaen's music; the grandeur of the church's two organs -- Hutchings-Votey and Rosales, alone and in combination with each other -- plus the rich acoustical presence at the church itself, and the musicianship, intelligence and bravura of Adam and Kraus.

The collaboration between the two cathedrals, said St. James music director James Savage, is a first. The organists at both churches -- Adam and Kraus at St. James and J. Melvin Butler and Thomas Joyce at St. Mark's -- have a collegial relationship.

"We care about each other and like what the other is doing," Savage said.

St. James has a long history, "a living connection," Savage calls it, with the great organists of Paris, including Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire, in the early part of the 20th century, and Naji Hakim, in the latter part. For more than 40 years, Messiaen was principal organist at La Trinite in Paris.

The 20th century, Savage said, is not rich in great Catholic composers, "singular but not great. Messiaen is in the top rung. His music has a deep and mystic understanding of the Catholic church."

Each of the six concerts offers one of Messiaen's big cycles, said Adam.

"We matched the cycles with those who knew at least a portion of them, but most of us had to learn a bunch of stuff. It was a lot of work."

Although Messiaen composed with the organ at La Trinite in mind, he didn't mind his works being played on quite different instruments. What was important for him, Adam said, was that the organ have a large capacity with a lot of colors and church good acoustics.

St. James and St. Mark's qualify on both counts.

On Friday, Kraus played "L'Apparition de l'eglise eternelle," "Monodie" and "Diptyque," while Adam played his huge cycle, "Le Corps glorieux" ("The Bodies in Glory"), subtitled "Seven Brief Visions of the Life of the Resurrected." All were written at the beginning of his career, in the 1930s, except "Monodie," from 1963.

All of Messiaen's organ works represent huge challenges to the musicians who attempt them. Kraus and Adam met those difficulties with a combination of virtuosity and musical acumen. While "Monodie" and "Diptyque" are simpler in means, but no less effective, "L'Apparition" is a huge panorama of sound. Rarely is the religious life evoked so passionately with dissonance coupled with harmony, which Kraus demonstrated with ready dispatch.

Adam is an expert in French organ music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which he plays with admirable regularity. "Le Corps" was awe-inspiring for his grasp of its essential materials, the sheer scale of his reading and inevitable insight into Messiaen. What a great beginning.